Keith McElhany, Marissa Mellinger, Dana Zack, Jenny Zou Mrs.

Bruner AP Psychology 1 23 September 2011 Social Psychology: Bystander Effect Analysis/Conclusion The bystander effect refers to the decreased likelihood of a person to help someone if other bystanders are present. To test this phenomenon, the experiment was performed and filmed at the Chandler Fashion Center: Marissa or Keith would drop a large stack of papers by accident in front of either a single person or multiple people. Bystander effect could be observed if the single person offered help to the confederate, while those in large groups ignored the mess or did not help. To eliminate unnecessary variables, both confederates made sure to drop their papers in a noticeable way. Following this procedure, it was hypothesized that people in groups at the mall would offer help fewer times than individuals walking by themselves. In addition to this primary experiment, the impact of gender on the willingness of people to help was also tested. The female confederate (Marissa) and male confederate (Keith) performed the same action of dropping papers as described above to ensure a controlled experiment. It was hypothesized that bystanders would be more willing to help a female in need. Surprisingly, in the first experiment, there was not a large difference in the number of Confederate Small group
subject (1-2 People) Trial 1 Small group subject (1-2 people) Trial 2 Small group subject (1-2 people) Trial 3 Large group subject (3-5 people) Trial 4 Large group subject (3-5 people) Trial 5 Large group subject (3-5 people) Trial 6

Female Male

1 1

0 0

1 0

1 0

0 2

2 1

people that helped that traveled alone or in packs; the hypothesis was incorrect, however,

McElhany, et al. 2 because people in larger groups helped the confederates more often; the helpers were often adults and the non-helpers were children and teens. It was disappointing to see that the confederates were ignored or pushed aside in the crowded setting consistently though, even when they were clearly struggling to collect the papers. The number of helpers was definitely expected to be higher. However, the second hypothesis was proven correct; more people from small to large groups offered to help the female confederate. It is interesting to note that some subjects offered sympathetic condolences to Marissa, i.e. Rough day? or Murphys Lawit happens, while Keith was only apologized to. Overall, the bystander effect was observed. Social psychology is a much more applicable branch of psychology to peoples daily lives and its phenomenon are often occurring unnoticed. With bystander effect in particular, it is clear that many assumptions are made about whether or not someone needs assistance. It is possible that the attribution theory could have affected the experiment: subjects may have attributed the drop of papers to the confederates clumsiness or to an accident (vehavioral or situational respectively) which would then influence whether or not they helped. The bias towards the female gender was also confirmed in this experiment: more men helped Marissa than they helped Keith. The experiments yielded somewhat expected results.